1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to paint shields, and in particular to a removable disposable paint shield for use on door hinge hardware.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Doors, door frames and door jams are often painted or treated with materials or colors that are different from those on adjacent walls or from each other. In new building construction, the framing and hanging of doors usually occurs far before the doors, jams, frames or walls are treated or painted. Doors must be properly hung in order to swing freely and close tightly, a process which is made possible in part through adjustments in the positioning of the door on its hardware hinges.
In any new building construction, there are often several similar doors for the various rooms of the building. In hotels, apartments, or office buildings the numbers of similar (or identical) doors may run into the hundreds or thousands. Painting or treating these large numbers of doors and the door jams in which they are mounted at one time is economical and efficient. Presently, in new construction, numerous doors are often taken down from their fitted frames (jams), their hanging hardware is removed, and they are taken to a single location for painting. The doors and the hardware hinges used to hang them may easily become mixed up with one another and replaced in different frames from whence they came. This is wasteful and inefficient since the doors and hardware must again be fitted and adjusted for the new frame.
Painting or treating doors or door jams in existing construction is cumbersome if the doors and hardware are removed since the few hardware hinges may become mixed up with each other and non-professionals may not re-hang the door properly. Alternatively, each of the hardware elements of the door or door jam may be covered with tape or other adhesive material allowing the door and door jam to be painted or treated in place.
As a result of these difficulties, certain paint masking devices for door hardware have been developed in the prior art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,195,590 to Herrington describes a set of reusable paint shields for door hinges, striker plates and door casings. One of the set of Herrington devices is designed to snugly and frictionally clip onto a door hinge butt plate after a door is removed. However, such devices are often difficult to remove after the paint is dry, or they tend to break or wear out quite quickly because of the how wide the clip is opened and closed over the door hinge. Thus, although the Herrington device is designed to be reusable, it is not.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,802,259 to Geslewitz describes a different paint spatter shield for door hardware which relies on a cumbersome radial tab attached to the cylindrical portion which touches the door and interferes with the painting process of that portion of the door itself. The Geslewitz device may also include an adhesive surface to stay in place.